Nightmares & Dreamscapes
by Citizenjess
Summary: Anakin doesn't sleep so well. Implied slash.


Summary: Anakin doesn't sleep so well. Slight AU, if you take into account that I've got Obi-Wan apprenticed with Qui-Gon before/by the time he's like, eight, when Jedi Apprentice book canon affirms that he barely harasses his way into an apprenticeship before he turns thirteen. Title shamelessly stolen from Stephen King.

* * *

**Nightmares & Dreamscapes**

* * *

When Anakin was nine, just a scrap of a young boy and only under the charge of Obi-Wan Kenobi for a few months' time, he was prone to nightmares.

There were myriad reasons for this, Anakin having only just been taken from his mother, and then being shown the rather gritty underbelly of the Force by attending his first Jedi funeral service only scant days after leaving the security, such that it was, of the only home had had ever known. Brave though he was, Obi-Wan could nonetheless understand why the young boy was plagued with night terrors. He had occasionally woken from bad dreams as a boy, for instance, and his childhood had not been wrought with nearly so many oddities as Anakin's.

He recalled fondly memories of Qui-Gon, perched on the edge of his bed, his Master's long, brown hair in slight disarray, as he had rushed from his own room to his Padawan's sleeping chambers to comfort him. "There, there, Obi-Wan," he'd crooned, rubbing soothing circles into his back. Obi-Wan, only seven or eight at the time, would snuggle against the front of Qui-Gon's robes Qui-Gon always made sure to be properly attired around his young student back in the fledgling days of his mentoring relationship and inhale deeply the clean, understated scent of his Master that he soon came to associate with comfort, familiarity, even home.

Qui-Gon would always smile kindly at him once the shivering and occasionally, the tears had subsided. "All right, now, Padawan?" he would ask. Obi-Wan would smile up at his Master a tad sheepishly and nod; then Qui-Gon would tuck him back into bed and ruffle his hair affectionately. That was usually all it took to chase Obi-Wan's monsters away.

* * *

Obi-Wan remembered these clips of his own childhood while tending to and witnessing Anakin's. The boy never seemed able to keep still for long periods of time, was blessed or cursed, depending on one's point of view with a seemingly unlimited supply of energy, and the restlessness usually carried over to bedtime.

* * *

Frantic, unintelligible muttering through their training bond was usually what roused Obi-Wan initially. He would don his own brown robe, taking a cue from Qui-Gon, and pad quickly to Anakin's room. The boy usually had rolled onto his back at this point, eyes squeezed shut and biting his lip as his hands fisted the bed sheets. Small moans of unrest fell from his mouth, and Obi-Wan would lay a soothing hand on his forehead or cheek. "Anakin," he would murmur. "Anakin, wake up. It's all right, now, Anakin; you're just having a bad dream."

Anakin eventually would wake up, of course, his face flushed, his bright blue eyes wet with unshed tears. "M-Master," he would whimper, and clamored eagerly into Obi-Wan's proffered embrace, burrowing into the folds of his Master's cloak. Even as a small child, Anakin always seemed to crave warmth.

"What was it this time?" Obi-Wan would always ask, wondering if Anakin's night terrors bore any resemblance to his.

Every time, however, Anakin would simply blink and shake his head once or twice, as if trying to forget the details (or perhaps more accurately, pushing them to the back of his mind for later reevaluation). "Nothing," he would mumble noncommittally, and wait for Obi-Wan to pull the covers back up to his chin and pat his cheek. "G'night, Master," he would say sleepily, already half-asleep again, surrendered to the ambiguous dream world that he seemed so hesitant to share with anyone.

* * *

Obi-Wan only ever had one recurring dream, which lasted well into adulthood, plaguing him with its unremittingly accurate depiction of the past. Most tellingly, when he witnessed Qui-Gon's death behind closed eyes, over and over again, he always played a hopelessly, helplessly unhelpful bit part.

* * *

Anain was a quick study when he chose to be, and learned easily basic shielding techniques, fastidiously applying them to his overactive mind at night. Obi-Wan wondered if, perhaps, the boy felt guilty for disturbing him, but did not want to embarrass Anakin even more by asking. He still kept his mind open for suggestion of Anakin's unrest, of course, but his visits to his Padawan's bed chambers, as quickly as they'd begun, grew fewer and farther in-between.

Nonetheless, Obi-Wan never scolded Anakin, nor did he truly mind the 'interruption'. He was a tad surprised, however, the first time Anakin found himself at Obi-Wan's door for a change. "Padawan," he greeted, instinctually reaching for a robe to wrap around himself, bare from the waist up. "Is something wrong?"

Anakin blinked at him. "I had a bad dream," he stated matter-of-factly, his small face contemplative and troubled. He stood hesitantly in the doorway until Obi-Wan realized he was seeking permission to enter. Obi-Wan beckoned him inside with a slight nod of his head. Anakin quickly propelled himself onto Obi-Wan's mattress and into his Master's lap, albeit stiffly, as if afraid Obi-Wan would change his mind.

"What was your dream about?" Obi-Wan asked, brushing a particularly unruly lock of Anakin's sleep-mussed hair from his forehead. "Anything you would like to talk about?" He fully expected the answer to be no, but Anakin surprised him again.

"You were fighting something, Master," Anakin answered in a quiet monotone. "Something big, and dark, and scary-looking. You talked to it and fought it with your lightsaber," he continued. "But it killed you. And then you just disappeared and I woke up. I wanted to make sure it was just a dream," Anakin finished a bit hurriedly. He snuggled in closer as Obi-Wan, almost unconsciously, tightened the embrace.

"Oh, Padawan," Obi-Wan murmured. He felt the boy's quickened heartbeat start to relax slightly and smiled against the crown of his hair. "Dreams will pass in time. You'll see. Release your anxieties surrounding them into the Force, and it will happen." His hand stilled in its effort to rub circles on Anakin's back as the boy looked up, obviously still shaken.

"But Master," Anakin protested. "I don't want you to die. I won't ever want you to die!"

"And I do not wish to die, Padawan, at least not before my time," Obi-Wan assured him, almost laughing at the boy's comically horrified expression, but catching himself at the last moment. "Nobody ever dies for good, you know," he continued. "Their bodies will expire eventually, but their spirits will ascend into the Force." He chuckled at Anakin's still dubious expression, his lower lip stuck out mutinously.

"But it is not for you to worry about now, Padawan," he chided gently. "Tonight is for you to rest." He relinquished his hold on Anakin's frame, surprised when the boy did not move away immediately. "Do you want me to tuck you back in?" he asked pleasantly.

"Can I stay with you, Master?" Anakin queried tentatively. "The big scary thing might come back for you," he added quickly, as if to fend off any continued dissent. "I want to be here to protect you, Master.'

"I suppose a little extra protection would not hurt," Obi-Wan relented with a smile, tugging down the blankets. Anakin beamed and burrowed beneath them, curling on his side facing Obi-Wan and yawning, seemingly tired from the effort.

"Don't worry, Master," he mumbled sleepily. "I'll save you." Obi-Wan curled onto his own side and drifted off, the low sounds of Anakin's sleep snuffles a rather welcome lull.

* * *

In his formative years, Obi-Wan became the center of Anakin's universe. It didn't surprise him, then, that his Master was the main subject matter of his nightmares, which showcased both visions of Obi-Wan fighting monsters and becoming one himself.

Sometimes he turned into a great horned beast with two lightsaber blades and an ugly snarl. Other times, he appeared to Anakin in a seemingly normal fashion, except for his voice, which was low and menacing. "You will fail me, Anakin," the Obi-Wan in his dream would smirk condescendingly, his usually bright eyes deadened to a cold gray. "You will fail me."

Sometimes, though, Obi-Wan just appeared as a lonely, broken-down old man, which for reasons he couldn't put his finger on, bothered Anakin more than the monsters ever would.

* * *

Anakin's nightmares did not abate as he moved through puberty into young adulthood, a realization most bothersome to Obi-Wan. During his own tenure as a senior Padawan, he had long given up battling his Sandman-induced creepy-crawlies. And yet, the intensity of Anakin's own nightmares, the ferocity with which he expounded on them when asked, hinted to Obi-Wan that Anakin's monsters were of a different sort. Having not the personal experience from which to glean wisdom, however, he eventually consulted with Master Yoda.

"An extension of the self, dreams are," Yoda mused, both serene and chiding at once. "Our hopes, our fears, our ambitions, they contain. Center himself, young Skywalker must; realize and accept things for what they are, he must; only then, become a reality, these dreams won't."

The advice seemed solid, and Obi-Wan had always highly respected Yoda's opinion, so he set out to put it into practice. During their nightly meditations together, Obi-Wan began focusing on the subject of Anakin's nightmares.

Neither he nor Qui-Gon had ever held much faith in the notion of prophetic dreams; his Master was too tuned into the Living Force and the notion of making one's own destiny, and Obi-Wan was simply skeptical of things he could not personally prove to himself beyond a reasonable shadow of a doubt. He had never known his true family, either, nor was he familiar with any possible existing attachments of Qui-Gon's, so it made sense to him that Anakin would be having visions of the one person in the universe that he cared about indefinitely whom he'd been made to leave behind when he became a Jedi.

Anakin was less willing to dismiss his nightmares as merely the product of a restless imagination, however. "This is stupid," he said one evening, frustrated, stretching his limbs out of their previously held Lotus position. "Telling myself they aren't real won't make them go away," he complained stubbornly.

"Master Yoda is confident that the more you allow yourself to study your nightmares rationally, the less they will plague you," Obi-Wan replied serenely, ignoring for now Anakin's outburst.

Anakin stood, pacing. "With all due respect, Master, you don't have to live with them," he said, "You don't know what they're like." It was the last time he broached the subject of his dreams with his Master, a fact for which Obi-Wan found himself ashamedly grateful.

* * *

The one good thing, if it could even be considered that, about his mother dying was that he no longer had to watch her wasting away every night. He didn't have to see her, malnourished, tied up and brutalized until she was bloody. He didn't have to hear her screaming his name.

He thought he would be relieved of the burden of his seemingly prophetic nightmares at long last. He knew he was wrong when he began having visions of Padme.

* * *

The Chancellor had always taken an unusual amount of interest in him. Anakin always heard that he was an extraordinarily busy man, but it seemed as if Palpatine had all the time in the world when he was in the vicinity.

Once when he was about ten, he'd been on a walk around the upper streets of Coruscant. It was not yet dark, and he probably shouldn't have been out alone, but his Master was meeting with the Council about something and he had finished most of his studies for the evening.

The Chancellor had happened upon him, his presence as mysterious and silky as the low, smooth tenor of his voice. He invited Anakin back to his office, and Anakin had hesitated, knowing his Master would be worried if he was not in his chambers by the time he returned. But Palpatine was chidingly persuasive. "I will take full responsibility, should Master Kenobi have any reason to worry," he promised. It wasn't often that an adult conspired with a mere Padawan student, and Anakin had accepted the invitation with a large smile.

Palpatine's hand was strangely cold; Anakin had always been taught to keep close to his guardians, and it just seemed right to reach up and grasp the Chancellor's fingers, curling his small, warm palm around them. They rode the elevator up to Palpatine's office in silence, Anakin fascinated by the button panel, the oddly disjointed feeling as they rode higher and higher, finally stopping at the very top floor.

Anakin didn't think he would ever get used to Palpatine's private chambers. The carpet was so plush that the soles of his Jedi boots sunk into it, making him feel smaller, insignificant. The walls, too, were red, menacing, the small candles set in sparse, crystalline holders around the room making it seem even more unnerving, somehow.

Palpatine seemed to sense Anakin's discomfort. "Would you like something to eat, Anakin? A snack, perhaps?"

"Thank you, Sir," Anakin responded, surprised. "But I, I've already had dinner and "

"Excellent, then." He pressed a button alongside his desk, and within seconds, a kitchen droid wheeled in a tray of pastries. Feeling a tiny bit hungry at this point, and also not wanting to seem rude by refusing, Anakin selected one graciously.

Palpatine steepled his thin fingers, studying him. "You look tired," he said perceptively. "Tell me, Anakin. Do you ever have bad dreams?"

Anakin started, nearly dropping the sweet he had taken. "S-sometimes, Sir," he said, bowing his head. He didn't know it was that obvious that something troubled him.

But Palpatine just smiled reassuringly at him. "There's nothing to be ashamed of," he said mildly. "Everyone has nightmares once in a while. Even a powerful Jedi-in-training," he said flatteringly.

Anakin blinked. "Master Obi-Wan told me that " he hesitated. Palpatine looked at him amicably and he pressed on. "He said that dreams pass in time. That they don't mean that what happens in them will come true."

"And what do you think?" Palpatine queried kindly.

Anakin looked down at his hands, feeling a bit guilty for criticizing his Master like this."I don't know," he shook his head. "I don't think Master Obi-Wan knows much about my dreams," he blurted. His gaze flew up again, ashamed, but Palpatine was still merely smiling at him, nodding as if Anakin had said something very wise.

He came to the Chancellor more and more as he grew older. Whenever he and his Master had a disagreement, he would turn at 500 Republica, and was always greeted warmly by Palpatine, who offered him food and drink and his undivided attention.

Moreover, he was fascinated by the details of Anakin's dreams: who they featured, what happened, and always, always, always how Anakin felt about them. It was a change from constantly feeling ashamed of having emotions around Obi-Wan, and Anakin found that he favored the Chancellor's passion to his Master's suppression of feeling. It was why he found himself confiding things in Palpatine that he would never dream of telling Obi-Wan: about marrying Padme; about murdering sand people; about how he craved power over the selfless, unappreciated path of the Jedi.

And always, always, always, Palpatine treated him as if he were the most important person in the universe. He was exalted; he was special.

When it came time to choose between the Jedi and the Emperor, Palpatine made his decision easy: "I can make your dreams come true," he told him, his eyes alight with the darkness inside of him. "I can make your nightmares disappear."

And desperately, Anakin followed him, wanting more than anything for that to be true.

* * *

Darth Vader doesn't dream. His body is a hulking mass of machinery, refined and yet hideous to those who knew his origins. He doesn't eat, or breathe without the assistance of tubes and wires, and even his voice is no longer his own.

However, the night, when he manages to sleep, is black and dreamless. And so even if he rather hates his new Master now, even if he constantly looks for ways to get rid of the man nay, the thing that dared to keep his body alive when his soul was so very, very dead, he is comforted by the simple knowledge that, at least, his sleep is finally painless.

He is, after all, his own worst nightmare.


End file.
